Whore Next Door: The Adventures of Satanist Barbie

The night I realized I was catching feelings for my new boo, we had gathered together a small coven of kinky witch types — a crew of lifestyle lesbian dominatrixes and their genderqueer submissives — for the Satanic ritual known as a Black Mass. My girlfriend grew up Catholic, while I am a second-generation witch, so in terms of our religious values, Satanism seemed like a good way for us to meet in the middle.

It helps that our individual paths have somehow led us both to fetishize the rituals, aesthetics, and themes of religious practices — although our spiritual beliefs themselves are decidedly post-modern, if you really get down to it.

When she became a professional dominatrix, she chose the name Bella Bathory, a nod to the 15th-century countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was of Transylvanian descent and who to this day retains the world record for most murders — among women, anyway — having seduced and slain up to 650 girls before her death in 1614.

For me, this is evidence that this girl could be the one — if I believed in that sort of thing. When she asked if I would act as a human altar for the ritual she was organizing, my face lit up like the heart-eyed emoji.

I was finishing up a radio show that evening, as the full moon was rising. I booked it as fast as I could to the ritual site — our friend’s walk-up apartment — and disrobed.

There were brownies and Champagne for fuel, and my blonde bombshell girlfriend was decked out in red Agent Provocateur lingerie that criss-crossed her chest in the shape of a pentagram, framing her décolletage perfectly. A fine black velvet robe lined in red satin and Louboutin heels completed the outfit.

“This is Barbie Satanism,” she said, spraying a pentagram onto the hardwood floor from a can of Reddi-wip before squirting some into her red lipstick-lined mouth.

We put Marilyn Manson on in the background, and I lay before her naked on the couch, a goblet of Champagne balanced carefully on my rib cage. I steadied my breath, making it shallow and unobtrusive — as if I were feigning death onstage. The stakes were high; my life had been threatened if I spilled even an ounce on the new furniture.

I felt a twinge of panic in my belly when they began talking about the “sacrifice.” I grew up in the wake of the 1980s Satanic panic, and for the briefest moment, I questioned how well I really knew my new girlfriend — and considered the tiny possibility that she was about to actually murder me and drink my blood.

As I lay there basking in the delicious space between arousal and fear, I worried that I was in over my head. News headlines flashed behind my eyes. “Whore Next Door Slaughtered in Lesbian Cult’s Satanic Ritual” could spark a new wave of concerned citizens reporting every graffiti pentagram they spot to local authorities.

Black Mass is more of a parody of a Catholic mass than anything else; a ritual of non-conformity, celebrating the values of individualism, self determination, and indulgence.

But contrary to what concerned mothers of 1990s America would have folks believe, it turns out Satanism has nothing to do with kidnapping, drug abuse, the sacrifice of animals, or children. Or sex columnists.

Bella covered my body in in tiny, tasteless Communion wafers that felt like butterfly wings, and each member of our make-shift Barbie coven came forward to kneel and take one in their mouth. When the housecat began delicately licking up the whipped-cream pentagram, we all erupted into giggles, and Bella devoured my mouth in a bloodthirsty kiss.

The headquarters of the Church of Satan once resided right here in San Francisco, in an adorable single-family home at California Street and 23rd Avenue known as the Black House. Before it was demolished in 2001 and replaced by yet another duplex, the Black House hosted private rituals. Bombshell film star Jayne Mansfield visited, leading to allegations about the starlet’s devotion to Satanic practice that are debated to this day.

As Bella and I drifted off to sleep that night wrapped in vintage silk nightgowns and each other, we made plans for our next ritual. We decided that all pronouns would be switched to female and that perhaps we should utilize some images of Ms. Mansfield herself, our blonde patron saint.